Kinds of religion for black magic

[Medusa]

Re: Kinds of religion for black magic

The world's a toilet. There's no need to make things worse.

And I'm defining "black magic" as "setting out to do harm to people by supernatural means", and if that's NOT what it means, then I retract the post you quoted.

No. That's what it means.

[Ophidia]

Re: Kinds of religion for black magic

As I understand it, there are some very serious ramifications for Voodoo practitioners who lay curses on people.

No, not really. In Vodou, it's more about how much you're willing to pay, and who, in order to get something done. There are other things at play, too - like if the lwa you're petitioning determines your cause to be worthwhile. That doesn't necessarily mean that your cause is just, but is it well thought-out and not just some random act of malevolence. People who ask for good things to happen without providing sufficient payment run into trouble with the lwa as much as someone who asks for something bad to happen. What usually ends up happening to those in Vodoun communities who indiscriminately curse others is real-life social justice - or they get good at it and other people start paying them to do the dirty work.

There is a branch of the African Diaspora religions that is similar to Santeria called Palo. It may have originated in the Congo of Africa. The most infamous is Palo Mayombe, made more infamous because of the Matamora cult murders in the 80s that were wrongly associated with it. The Palo branches do involve a lot of ancestor worship and calling on the dead, along with using more blood and funerary remains within the rituals, so it is assumed to be a 'dark' or 'evil' religion. But practitioners in the Palo faith are known to be powerful healers - so once again, it boils down to intent.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Kinds of religion for black magic

The world's a toilet. There's no need to make things worse.

And I'm defining "black magic" as "setting out to do harm to people by supernatural means", and if that's NOT what it means, then I retract the post you quoted.

For me, supernatural means are inextricably linked to physical ones. If you do something good or bad to someone magically, it has the same implications as if you did it physically. That said, it's difficult to define making things worse.

For example, we might say that theft is a bad thing. No excuse for it. Yet we might admit that taking an axe away from someone intent on cleaving another's skull, would in fact be the right thing to do. No matter that the axe man might want to hang onto his weapon (perhaps it has sentimental value too) - he has to be stopped.

Now we could argue that attacking someone with an axe is worse than theft, but suppose the axe man refuses to give up his axe and a struggle ensues. Suppose the axe man is hurt in the process, perhaps with his own axe. You see where I'm going here? Harm is a tricky thing to quantify.

I came from a family of witches who did virtually nothing other than hex. I broke away from their tradition simply because I felt that if you had that kind of power, there were better things you could do with it. But I will admit there are times when I have hexed - and made a bloody good job of it too.

Why? Because the law was powerless to act. Because if I didn't, then the perpetrator of a particularly nasty crime would have got away with it. In that particular instance, I considered Edmund Burke's maxim, 'All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.'

Nothing is black and white. Not even magic.